For students with prior painting experience who wish to develop a distinct personal aesthetic and visual language, while extending their understanding of painterly practice. Kim Spooner specialises in demonstrating and explaining her vast technical knowledge of paint, mediums and techniques, which can be used to achieve many different results. Kim will show you how to make a variety of painting mediums for glazing, impasto or fine layering techniques, through demonstrations and referencing traditional and contemporary art, and how to layer paint and achieve nuanced optical effects when mixing colours. You will learn how different paints function, why different supports are used, how to make an appropriate gesso and how to prepare surfaces. Kim sets projects and discusses the conceptual and compositional possibilities they present, giving individual and group direction to enable each student to interpret projects independently. Students will be guided to identify their own painting style while opening avenues for investigation for individual expression and expanding their knowledge of paint and materials

Kim Spooner’s incisive and expressive portrait and figure paintings are held in public and private collections. She is an award-winning portraitist with portraits in the National Portrait Gallery, and is an inspirational teacher who is skilled at communicating ideas and responding to the individual needs of students and artists. She completed a residency at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris, in 2009. Winner of the 2006 Portia Geach Memorial Award, Kim is represented by Annandale Galleries, Sydney, and Adele Boag Gallery, Adelaide